MATTY HURWORTH

There's only one thing Shaping Co craftsman Matt Hurworth likes being covered in more than foam dust, and that's a clean throaty barrel. He revels in both! The foam dust addiction all started back in 1986 when Cronulla charger Jeremy Hrbac got the 13 year old grommet an after school job sweeping the floors at Force 9 surfboards at Taren Point. We've had trouble keeping him dust-free ever since.
A self-confessed 'wog' who loves taking the mickey out of himself (just in case somebody else gets in first), Matt isn't actually as European as he makes out. Born and bred at Cronulla of an Aussie father, whose sporting claim to fame was playing First Grade rugby league for Sydney's mighty St.George team, and a driven entrepreneurial mother of Greek heritage, Matt seems to have been blessed with liberal European genes. He certainly didn't get a fair share of his father's brawn. Former pro surfer Matt Branson nicknamed him Worms whilst he was still in his teens, because he ate like a white pointer, but was skinny as an eel.
Skinny little Worms first paddled a stick out into the wide blue yonder at the age of ten. He found he got up with his right foot forward, and has stuck with that ever since. He joined Cronulla Sharks Boardriders the following year, and has become more than partial to contest singlets over ensuing seasons. These days he collects not just foam dust, but trophy dust as well, and he has plenty of wooden slabs with plastic figurines to catch either.
Somewhere in the dust in the factory on Machinery Drive, there's a trophy proudly giving testimony that the Shaping Co team won the FCS Industrial Teams Challenge for three consecutive years in recent times. Matt was one of the four man team on each occasion. More (shall we say) self fancied teams pulled in their highest available team riders, but the SC crew relied mainly on their shaping team.
Over the years Matt has proven those hairy legs know how to drive a surfboard. He shaped his own virgin board in 2005. One of his 'mates' observed that it looked as though it had been hacked into shape with a chainsaw, but riding his crude creation Matt went on to place runner-up in the Senior Men's section of the Australian Titles that year, in six foot pits at North Straddie.
He's also won the Senior Mens category in the Byron Bay Easter Classic three times, as well as being open club champion at both Kirra Surfriders and Cabarita Boardriders, the latter coastal village being where he contentedly resides with his partner Janelle and their three groms. Putting back into the culture that he loves so much, he was also club President of Cabarita Boardriders for two years.
Worms had no idea what he wanted to do when he left school, and ended up working for two years as an apprentice photographer with surf snapper Sarge. He had quite a few shots published in the old newspaper Tracks, before it turned into another non-descript surf mag, and before auto-focus lenses. He also edited several of the Sarge's Surfing Scrapbook video series.
Still, with obvious exposure to the pro surfing world and after two trips to Oahu's North Shore he found it was the surfer's boards that interested him more than cameras and f-stops. Well versed in board maintenance after having his own ding repair business from age 14, he'd forever been as hungry for surfboard knowledge and experience, as he was for food for his slender frame. In 1993 he packed his quiver and kit and headed north praying for a start at a surfboard factory.
Sponsored by Gunther Rohn's Local Motion since the age of 16, the grumbling but beloved South African bear extended a generous hand even further and the Ballina factory became Matt's first stop. Rohn's rudimentary tutelage set him off on a quest which included runs of various lengths under the captaincy of shaping identities like Nev Hyman, Murray Burton, Maurice Cole, Darren Handley, and Jason Stevenson.
After that second placing at North Straddy in 2005, Matt decided it was time to have a schralp at blanks under his own steam. Resorting back to taking the mickey out of himself, he called them 'Chainsaw' boards, making good of his mate's less than gracious comment on Matt's first shaping effort. 'Vandalised by Matt Hurworth' declares his shaping logo, under some artwork of a chainsaw given him by Vico shaper Kenny Reimers.
Don't be alarmed at the chainsaw. He doesn't really use one! 'No chainsaws in the shaping bays' was a clause in his agreement with Shaping Co, where he has teamed with Greg Webb since 2005. No doubt team riders like Chippa Wilson, Sam Clift, Dave Neilson and all his other faithful crew wouldn't have put up with it either.
He's personally tried and tested his boards in waves all over Oz and Europe, and being nothing less than the typical Aussie surf nazi, he does the Indo run regularly - way more often than he gets itchy from the foam dust. He lives to surf and shape, isn't happy with anything less than satisfied customers, and embraces plenty of all three in his daily routine.